Lee Kum Loon, 58, was on bail of RM11,000 pending today’s appeal in the Court of Appeal.

A three-member bench chaired by Justice Hanipah Farikullah said the court found no merit in his appeal.

In the absence of a specific meaning assigned to the term “trafficking” in the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007, Hanipah said the court was entitled to rely on the ordinary English meaning as found in the Cambridge dictionary.

She went on to define the term as meaning “the act of buying or selling people, or of making money from work (the trafficked person) is forced to do, such as sex work”.

“Based on the overall evidence presented in court and on the meaning of ‘trafficking’, we find the elements of the crime under the Act have been fulfilled,” said Hanipah, who sat with Justices Ahmad Nasfy Yasin and Lim Chong Fong.

The court unanimously affirmed the conviction and sentence pronounced on Lee by the High Court.

Hanipah went on to issue a warrant of committal for Lee to begin his jail term.

In 2019, the sessions court sentenced Lee to seven years’ jail after finding him guilty of trafficking and coercing the women, aged 28 and 24, to provide sexual services to the massage parlour’s patrons.

The following year, the High Court dismissed Lee’s appeal and enhanced his sentence to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The offence was committed at the premises of Asia City Reflexology in Section 25, Shah Alam, Selangor, at about 6.30pm on July 31, 2018.

The trafficking charge against Lee was framed under Section 12 of the Act and was punishable with imprisonment of up to 20 years.

Earlier, lawyer Tan Choon Hong submitted that the women were only employed to provide body massage services but had gone beyond that on their own volition.

“There was no element of force or fraud by the appellant. He did not collect the money for the sexual services provided,” said Tan.

He said although Lee kept their passports, the women were free to move around, for instance to go shopping.

“The charge against my client under this Act is too harsh. He could have been prosecuted under the Penal Code or the Immigration Act,” the lawyer said.

Deputy public prosecutor Fauziah Daud said the victims had been coerced by the appellant to perform immoral acts.

“This is sexual exploitation and the victims’ consent is irrelevant,” she said.